Where to Post Jobs for Free Online

In an effort to stretch recruiting budgets these days without sacrificing candidate quality, employers of all sizes are going online to look for places where they can post jobs for free. From social networking sites to niche job boards and online communities, there are plenty of ways to get your jobs advertised at no cost.

Advantages to free online job postings include no out-of-pocket costs, exposure to new audiences and a potentially lower cost per hire. When evaluating the effectiveness of free online job postings, however, it’s important to consider the time spent listing, managing and tracking success, the size of the audience and the type of job seekers and potential candidates they attract. At the end of the day, no one wants to waste time promoting jobs — free or not — to the wrong talent pool and sifting through a sea of CVs from unqualified candidates. High applicant-to-hire ratios don’t help anyone!

Here are a few ideas on where you can go online to post jobs for free.

Our unique company reviews and insights help over 67 million monthly visitors find the perfect job. Job seekers on Glassdoor have over 49 million reviews and insights at their disposal (3), and they read at least 4 of them before forming an opinion on a company. (4) This means the right candidates self-select for your jobs, delivering higher quality candidates and reducing turnover.

You may be thinking, “We have a careers section on our website, and all the job aggregators posting our job openings anyway. So why should I advertise jobs on Glassdoor?” However, sponsoring jobs allows them to show in front of the most informed candidates more frequently — in fact, sponsored jobs receive 14X more clicks than non-sponsored jobs. (5)

Clean house first before advertising your jobs outside of your own career site. Work with hiring managers to update the content, and then make sure you’re leveraging tips to optimise your job descriptions for online search. If your job descriptions aren’t up-to-date or SEO-optimised, listing them on different free job posting sites is a waste of your time.

On Social Media

Use the power of social media to spread the word about your job openings. Post job opportunities anywhere your company has a social presence. That way, people can apply on desktop or on their mobile device. Just remember to keep your posts fresh and frequently updated or risk your social presence looking stale.

University and Alumni Community Job Boards

Most universities offer students and alumni the opportunity to post jobs for free. If you’re looking for a summer marketing intern, a newly minted MBA or a scientist, this might be a great place to advertise your open positions. The alumni networks of larger institutions offer an additional talent pool which typically extends far beyond the city or town where the campus is located. Know of a few local schools where you’d love to advertise your jobs, but you’re not an alumnus? Not to worry! Reach out to career services and request guest access if you don’t see it promoted on the site.

From their earliest days, online classified advertisement and community websites, Gumtree and Craigslist, have offered an easy way to post jobs online. Depending on the city, you might be able to post a job for free on Craigslist. Gumtree charges around £46 for a standard job posting, which is still significantly cheaper than most online job posting sites available. Remember, however, that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Due to the ease through which candidates can apply for jobs posted and the wide net audience it attracts, many employers have found that the cheap or free cost to post jobs on community websites isn’t worth the time required to screen the massive flood of CVs from often-unqualified applicants.

Even though it doesn’t involve any out-of-pocket costs, it’s up to you to determine if using free online job posting sites are a worthy use of your time, depending on how easy it is to list your jobs, the size of the audience and the candidate quality and fit.

Pros and Cons of Free Job Boards

So if all of these unpaid avenues are available, why should anyone pay for a listing? What are the pros and cons of free job sites?

If you’re not paying for a job to be specifically targeted to qualified candidates, you may not be reaching anyone of value or quality. This means that the time you’ve spent crafting a recruiting message has gone to waste if there is a meagre response or wave of unqualified candidates bombarding you with applications.

You also have no way of tracking your metrics — making your money work for you using real-time data — so you’d have no way of knowing which avenues and regions are the most fruitful for your efforts. Lastly, while you do not spend money, you spend time, energy and creativity on a post that does not promise any positive results that can be measured or replicated. That’s where Glassdoor steps in.

3 Reasons Why You Should Advertise Your Jobs on Glassdoor:

1. Since Glassdoor aggregates job postings, yours may already be listed. But sponsored posts get 14x more clicks and 10x more apply starts than non-sponsored job posts, so you’ll get more qualified candidates faster. (5)

2. With Glassdoor, you can monitor how your job advertisements are performing. See exactly who is engaging with your jobs, and measure clicks and apply starts to your jobs so you can make data-driven adjustments to your approach.

3. On Glassdoor, you can advertise your jobs on your competitors’ profiles and prevent them from advertising on yours so that the best and most relevant candidates always see your job post, no matter where they look.